Checking out
Thursday Dec 11, 2008
Congratulations to everyone who has completed (or will soon complete) their exams! Wahoo! Now for the winter break!
Sometimes I have conversations with law students about breaks. Winter break, spring break, and summer break - and the all important question: What should I do during my break? Should I do some advance reading for my upcoming classes? Memorize Gilbert's? Get a head start on my journal article? Figure out what I want to be when I grow up? Read up on the industry I'm interested in? Read all those cases I skipped during last semester, including the footnotes? Or maybe agonize over what I could have done better on my exams?
My advice is always the same: whatever else you do, you need to check out. Give your brain a break and do something fun! Take some "me" time and do things you enjoy doing that you don't have time for during the semester. Go see a movie. Read a (non-required) book. Go to a museum. Exercise. Get outside. Spend quality time with friends and family who hopefully still recognize you. Get reacquainted with your pets so your dog doesn't growl at you when you come home.
Checking out will enable you to come back and start fresh for the next semester, and you'll feel like you really got a break. I try to take a complete "check out" break every year, where I have absolutely no responsibilities - no work, no kids, no to-do list, no anything!
Here's one of my favorite examples of checking out. A couple of years ago I went on a horseback riding trip through the mountains north of Barcelona. The scenery was absolutely beautiful, and the trip had an artsy bent to it - we were in Salvador Dali country and were visiting the house he lived in, his wife's castle, his museum, etc. (Boy, was he odd!) The tour wasn't for wimps, though! Every day was very physically challenging - trying to stay on the horse while galloping around trees, going through shrubs, under branches (where you had to basically lie down on your horse to avoid being decapitated), down rocky hills, etc. It was also about 100 degrees out. You couldn't think about anything but survival and where the next bottle of (hopefully cold) water was coming from. (Believe it or not, I find this type of thing enjoyable.) 
Anyway, we stayed at various B&B's (i.e., people's houses) with different folks from all over the world. I was chatting with this very nice couple from Sweden, and they both worked at high-tech companies there (one was IBM, the other might have been Ericsson). They asked me where I worked, and I drew a complete blank. I must have had that "deer in the headlights" look. For at least 30 seconds I could not think of the name "Sun" - then it came to me as we started talking about something else. THAT's when you know you have really checked out and gone off-line, when you can't even remember who signs your paycheck.
So, when you check out, you're not necessarily shooting for complete amnesia, but definitely reducing your stress level, taking time for yourself, recharging your batteries, spending time doing things that you enjoy, and getting ready for a fresh start. Your brain will thank you for it.
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